Vrsac Lake has spa potential – Opportunity for development of hotel accommodation

This year, the city lake in Vrsac, along with the Vrsac Hill, was included in the list of spa and climate spots in Serbia, which will enable the city administration to get incentives for attracting direct investments in the development of hotel accommodation.

That status should upgrade both the look and the offer of this sole public swimming facility in the city in which several thousand people find respite from the summer heat every day for free.

At the initiative of the citizens, the reconstruction of the lake complex started last year, when the embankment and the underwater concrete steps were repaired. Last summer, the construction of a concrete fence with metal panels to the street where the main entrance is located was completed, and now, straw parasols have been set up on the children’s beach, which is the only one to have a traditional shallow-water area. The sole mini-bar, where refreshments can be bought, has also been opened there.

– We have placed a big focus on the lake, so during the season, also at the citizens’ initiative, a new modern children’s playground, worth RSD 10 million, of which six million is co-financed by the Ministry of Family Care, will also be built there – stated Mayor Dragana Mitrovic and noted that they also had a project for the cleaning of the lake from the sludge, which should be realized with the support of higher authorities.

Ahead of each swimming season – July 1 through August 31, the lake is half-emptied, so that at least the bottom in the coastal area would be cleaned and disinfected using hydrated lime. Then it is filled with clean water and further disinfected using peracetic acid.

Remains of Pannonian Sea

Some fifteen years ago, experts from the Hydrogeology Institute determined that the water, which seeps through the so-called sprinklers from a depth of 200 meters, is over a million years old and that it is in fact a leftover from the Pannonian Sea. It is salt water and contains a high concentration of iodine, sulfate, magnesium and calcium. In contact with oxygen, it releases methane, which burns when it comes into contact with a flame. That makes it suitable for heating as well.

Throughout the season, it is refilled with water from two borewells, which constantly leak. Drinking-quality water flows from one of them, and from the other, through the so-called sprinklers, highly mineral thermal water flows at a constant degree of 25 degrees, thanks to which the Government of Serbia included the Vrsac Lake among spa and climate spots. Many people of Vrsac say that it has help them heal their rheumatic diseases, psoriasis and other skin diseases, but its true spa potentials are yet to be announced.

Grad Vršac

Dragana Mitrović

City Lake in Vršac

Vršac Lake